John Norman - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor

23 Renegades of Gor

Renegades of Gor

John Norman

Chronicles of Counter-Earth Volume 23

1 The Road; The Slave

(pg.7) In a sudden flash of lightning, showing the driving rain, the wagons, the

crowd on the road, I saw ahead, above me, and to my left, about a half of a pasang

forward, on its stony plateau, the inn of the Crooked Tarn.

“There is less than a pasang to go,” said a man near me.

“They will have no places left,” said another.

“You could not afford them, if they did,” said the first man.

“We will camp on the lee side,” said another, “and water the beasts in the moat.”

“Wagons will already be circled there,” said another.

When groups are traveling together the wagons are often arranged in a circle, end

to end, tongues inward, narrowing gaps between the “sections” of the improvised

rampart, and chained together, the front axle of the next, the camp, and the draft

animals, and any accompanying livestock, within the circle. This forms a wagon

fort or laager. The circle contains more interior space than any other geometrical

figure, so the camp is thus as large as possible, given the number of wagons. Too,

as every point on the circumference is normally visible from, and equidistant

from, the center, this facilitates defense, for example, the prompt and pertinent

deployment of reserves. This arrangement, incidentally, is not common with the

southern wagon peoples, such as Tuchuks, if only because of the vast numbers

(pg. 8) of wagons. There the wagons congregate almost to form wagon cities. It is

fairly typical, however, with some of the less numerous wagon peoples of the

north, such as the tribes of the Alars, particularly when separated from one

another on the march, though there one might note the circle is often very large

and as many as four or five wagons deep.

There was another flash of lightning, and an earsplitting crash of thunder.

Ahead, and on the plateau of the inn, I saw the large wooden sign, on its chains,

jerked in the wind, striking about, pelted with rain. It was in the form of a

malformed tarn, its neck crooked, almost vulturelike, the right leg, with its talons,

much larger than the left, and outstretched, grasping. Such signs are not untypical

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of Gorean hostelries, as many Goreans, particularly those of the lower castes,

cannot read.

Then again it seemed the world was plunged into darkness and there was little

except driving rain and the creaking of wagons.

I had put my cloak over my head. The wagon I was walking beside was to my left.

It kept to the left side of the road, as it was moving north on what, in this latitude,

was usually called the Vosk Road, but farther south was generally knows as the

Vitkel Aria. My cloak hung down from my head about my shoulders, and thence

fell to my waist. I had shortened the straps of the sword sheath, hitching it high,

the hilt now before my left shoulder, under the cloak. I kept one hand, from

beneath my cloak, on the side of the wagon. In this way I was less likely to

stumble in the darkness, and the cold, driving rain. The other hand, my right, held

my cloak about my neck. My pack was in the wagon.

To my right, in the line of traffic moving south, I suddenly heard cursing and the

startled, protesting bellowing of a tharlarion. There were shouts. There was a

creaking of wood, and the slick squeak of an engaged, leather-lined brake shoe

pressing against the iron rim of a wheel. “Jump!” cried someone. There was then a

sound of sliding, and then, after a moment, that of a wagon tipping heavily into

mud. The tharlarion, probably thrown from its feet, was squealing in its harness.

I pulled my pack from the wagon I was trekking beside (pg.9) and, feeling about,

locating the side of the next wagon moving south, felt around it, and went to the

side of the road. Another tharlarion moved past me. I reached out and felt its wet

scales. In another flash of lightning I saw the wagon in the ditch, tipped on its

side, its canvas-covered, roped-down load bulging against the restraining cover,

the tharlarion also in its side, lying tangled in its harness, its feet flailing, its long

neck craning about.

A man thrust past me, holding an unshuttered dark lantern beneath his cloak. Rain

was pouring over the brim of his felt hat. Two others were behind him. They

slipped down the side of the ditch. “The axle is broken,” said one of the men to

the driver. The driver had another fellow with him, too. I stood on the road, at its

edge. I felt about with my foot. There were missing stones there. That was

probably where the wheel had missed the road. There, I supposed, had loosened,

given the heavy traffic and the storm. The wagon, it seemed, had slipped down the

embankment, dragging the beast after it. I stayed where I was for a moment. It

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seemed to me odd that three men, one with a dark lantern, should be so quickly

upon the scene.

“Beware,” cried the driver through the rain to the men below me, beside the

wagon. “I carry a Home Stone in this wagon.”

The three men looked at one another, and then backed away. They would not

choose to do business with one who carried a Home Stone, even though they were

three to two. It was as I had speculated. There were road pirates. Possibly the

stones had been deliberately loosened.

“Gentlemen,” I called down to them. “Lift your lantern.”

They looked upward. I let my cloak fall to the sides so that they could see the

scarlet of my tunic.

“Hold your places!” I called.

They stood where they were. I might pursue one. None of them cared to risk being

that one.

I slipped down the embankment to join them.

I tossed my pack to the side of the slope.

I took the lantern from the fellow in the broad-brimmed felt hat, and handed it to

the fellow of the driver. I did not draw my sword. It was not necessary.

(pg.10) “Unharness the tharlarion,” I said to the driver. “Get it on its feet.”

He went around to the front of the wagon.

I took the leader of the three men in hand. “You have a wagon nearby,” I said to

him. “You two fetch it.”

“It is not on the road,” said one of the fellows.

I flung the leader to his belly in the mud and put my foot on his back.

“Get the wagon!” he said.

They hurried away.

“Do you think they will return?” I asked.

He was silent.

I moved my foot to the back of his neck and pressed his face down into the muddy

water. He pulled up, sputtering. “Yes!” he said. “Yes!”

He was correct. In a few Ehn the two fellows returned, leading a tharlarion

drawing another wagon. As I had anticipated, it had not been far away.

“Empty your wagon out,” I told the two. “And place the cargo of this wagon in

what was once yours.”

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23 Renegades of Gor

They did so. As I had anticipated the contents of their wagon was a miscellany of

cheap loot, taken from other wagons, and from refugees moving south on the

Viktel Aria, from the vicinity of Ar’s Station, on the Vosk.

The driver, his tharlarion freed, and on its feet, hitched it before the other beast, in

tandem. It knew his voice, and would respond more readily as the lead beast.

“Give your purses to the driver,” I said.

They did so.

I myself took the contents of a metal coin box removed from their wagon and

emptied it into my wallet. It contained several coins, the loot, probably, of better

than several days’ work. To be sure, most of the coins there were small, such as

would be likely to weight only a threadbare purse. The number, however, more

than compensated for the generally unimpressive denominations. There must have

been the equivalent there of seventeen or eighteen silver tarsks.

I located the stones which were missing from the edge of the road. They were in

the ditch below their place, half sunk in the mud. Apparently they had been

removed deliberately from the road, and might be replaced, thence to be removed

again, at will, to (pg.11) again jeopardize the integrity of the road, their absence in

the darkness in effect, constituting a trap. The three fellows, with my

encouragement, in the rain, replaced them.

I again took them to the bottom of the ditch, by the overturned wagon.

“Kneel there,” I told the three of them, “between the wheels, with your backs to

the bottom of the wagon.”

They complied, kneeling with the bottom of the overturned wagon behind them.

From this position it would be difficult for them to bolt.

“Take everything, but let us go!” begged the leader.

“I am thinking,” I told him, “of tying you naked on your back, over the tongue of

the wagon, and fastening your two fellows, on their backs, stripped, over the

wheels. It might be amusing to spin them about.”

They regarded one another, frightened.

“But you are not female slaves,” I mused.

“Men would find us with the loot about, and impale us!” said the leader.

That was not improbable. Thieves are often dealt with harshly on Gor.

“Do not condemn us to death!” begged the leader.

“Strip,” I ordered them.

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I then tied their hands behind their backs. Ropes were found in the wagon and we

tied them by the necks to the back of the wagon. Verr, too, and female slaves, and

such, are often tethered to the back of wagons.

“In the south,” said the driver, from the wagon box, “there are work gangs. We

can probably get something for them there.”

“Stay the traffic on the road, as you can, for an Ehn,” I said to the fellow of the

driver. “We will get the wagon back on the road.

“I doubt two tharlarion can pull this grade from the ditch, with this weight, with

the footing,” said the driver.

“Hurry to it,” I said to the fellow of the driver. “We shall try it.”

He scrambled up the embankment, the lantern in one hand, clutching at knots of

wet grass with the other, slipping, sliding back, then regaining his feet, then

reaching the surface. (pg.12) In the ditch we were ankle deep in water. The rain

continued to pour down in torrents. It ran from the pitched surface of the road

downward, in tiny rivers; it struck into the swirling ditch water, lashing it into

foam, dashing it upwards, its impact registered in thousands of overlapping circles

and leaping crowns of water. We saw the lantern, in the fellow’s hand, at the

surface, swinging. “Hold! Hold!” he cried in the storm. I think he then literally

seized the harness of the next tharlarion. “Hold!” he cried.

“We will never make it,” said the driver.

“Try,” I said. “Besides we have three stout fellows here who can turn about and

put their backs into it.”

“If the wagon slips,” said the leader of the brigands, “we could be crushed,

mangled beneath the wheels!”

“See it does not slip,” I said.

There were angry shouts now from the delayed line, moving south.

“Hurry!” I said to the driver.

He moved about the wagon and climbed to the wagon box. I heard, in a moment,

his shouting to the lead beast, and the crack of the tharlarion whip. The whip,

incidentally, seldom falls on the beast. Its proximity, and noise, are usually more

than sufficient. Too, it often functions as an attention-garnering device, a signal,

so to speak, preparing the beast for the sequent issuance of verbal commands, to

which it is trained to respond. Too, of course, like a staff of office, a rod, a baton,

or scepter, it is an authority device. To be sure, the device has its authority largely

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23 Renegades of Gor

in virtue of what it genuinely stands for, and what it can do. Much the same,

incidentally, can be said for the whip in the master/slave relationship. There, too,

normally, it seldom falls on the woman. it is not necessary that it do so. She sees

it, and knows what it can do. That is usually more than sufficient. She will have

felt it at some time, of course, so that her understanding in the matter will be more

than theatrical. She knows, of course, that if she is in the least bit displeasing or

recalcitrant, it will be used upon her. Indeed, she knows that she might be, from

time to time, placed beneath it, if only that she may be reminded that she is a

slave. It is my belief that women have an instinctual understanding of the whip.

The wagon lurched ahead.

(pg.13) it would attempt its rendezvous with the road by an ascendant diagonal.

The brigands were jerked forward, by the neck, behind it. One lost his footing and

was dragged for a few feet, through the ditch water, part way up the slope.

“Put your backs to it,” I told the captives.

“Look out!” cried someone from the road, above, perhaps a fellow come forward,

inquiring concerning the delay, dismounted from one of the other wagons.

“Look out!” cried another.

“It is tipping!” cried the leader of the brigands in terror.

I tried to set myself on the slope, but slipped back, and the wagon slid sideways

toward me, the wheels tearing lines in the grass, tilting. Then I got solid footing

and, my hands pressing against the side of the wagon, righted it.

“Who is down there?” called a fellow from the surface of the road.

I saw lanterns lifted, up on the road.

“There is a gang of five men on the other side of the wagon,” said a fellow. “It is

all right now. They have righted it.”

The first tharlarion now had its heavy, clawed feet on the stones of the road. I

heard its claws on the stone. Some other men, too, came to the second tharlarion,

hauling on its harness, and others, too, seized the wagon sides and the forward

wheels, lending their efforts to getting the wagon on the road. This was done in

part in the camaraderie of the road, but, too, men were anxious to be on their way.

It was not now safe in the north, in this area, particularly for refugees from the

vicinity of Ar’s Station.

“I see only one fellow down there,” said a man from the road. I went to retrieve

my pack from where I had cast it on the embankment. It was soaked through, I

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was sweating, in spite of the cold and the rain. Too, I had been very afraid, for a

moment. I had feared the wagon would tip. I saw it now above me, mostly on the

road, though, tilting, the left wheels were still over the edge of the stones. The

darkness and the traffic on the other side made it hazardous to pull fully across the

road. Harnesses might be fouled. Men can be trampled by tharlarion, wagons can

be torn apart.

(pg.14) I ascended to the surface of the road. I put my pack at the back of the

wagon.

“It is one of the scarlet caste,” said a fellow to another.

“Hold the lantern here,” I said to the fellow of the driver, who had now, having

arrested the progress of the following tharlarion, released his hold on the beast’s

harness.

“That is Andron, the brigand!” suddenly said a man, pointing to the leader of the

brigands.

There were angry shouts.

“Put their necks under the wheels!” said a man.

“Impale them,” cried another.

“Tie their feet together and drag them behind the wagons,” said another.

“Kneel,” I suggested to the brigands. There was a large number of people here and

I was not sure I could protect them. I had not counted on them being well known.

“Put your heads down,” I encouraged them. “Look as harmless as possible.”

“Chain them and hang them in iron collars at the inn!” said a fellow. Sometimes a

man lasts two or three days in this fashion.

“Chain them on the boards,” cried another. That is a similar form of punishment.

In it the victim is fastened, by collars and shackles, on structures of parallel,

upright boards, vertical platforms, in effect, mounted on posts. These structures

are most common in harbor cities, near the wharves. The fellow who had made

the suggestion was probably from the river port of Ar’s Station. In the country,

impalement is often used, the pole usually being set up near a crossroads.

“Let them be trampled by tharlarion,” sad a fellow.

“No, let them be torn apart by them,” said another. In this fashion ropes are tied

separately to the victim’s wrists and ankles, these ropes then attached to the

harnesses of two different tharlarion, which are, of course, then driven in opposite

directions.

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23 Renegades of Gor

“Yes, that is better,” agreed the first.

If one shares a Home Stone with the victim, of course, the punishment is often

more humane. A common punishment where this mitigating feature obtains is to

strip the victim, tie him to a post, beat him with rods and then behead him. This,

(pg. 15) like the hanging in chains, the exposure on boards, and such, is a very

ancient modality of execution.

I saw a knife leave a sheath in the driving rain. “There is no time,” said a man. “I

will cut their throats now.”

There were murmurs of assent.

The brigands looked up, bound, from their knees.

“There is no time to waste,” said a man. “If the storm ceases, and the cloud cover

scatters, the tarnsmen of Artemidorus may strike at the columns.” Artemidorus

was a Cosian, the captain of a band of flighted mercenaries.

“In a few Ahn it will be morning,” said a man.

The fellow with the knife stepped forward, but I blocked his path.

“These prisoners are mine,” I said.

“They are known in this area,” said the man with the knife.

“Step aside,” said another. “Let justice be done.”

“Move the wagons!” called a fellow in the back.

“There are many of us here,” said the fellow with the knife, not unpleasantly.

“The wagon is still off the road,” I said, indication the left wheels. “Let us move

the column forward.”

“To cut three throats will take but three Ihn,” said the fellow.

“Help me return the wagon to the road,” I said.

“You are clever,” said the fellow in the rain. “You would enlist our support, and

thus have us be your fellows, and thus deny us our will.”

“You will not help?” I said.

“Get ten men to help!” said he. “I will not be deterred.”

“Move the wagons!” called a man from behind him. I heard tharlarion snorting

and bellowing, even in the rain. There were some five lanterns where we were. I

could see others lit, farther back in the arrested line.

“I myself am prepared to cut throats if we do not move in two Ehn,” said a fellow.

“I have a companion in my wagon, and two children. I would get them to safety.”

“You will not help?” I asked the fellow with the knife.

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“No,” said he.

“Stand back,” I said. I then bent over, and backed under the rear of the wagon.

(pg.16)”Do not,” said the fellow of the driver, who held one of the lanterns.

“He is mad,” said another.

“Look!” cried another.

I straightened up slowly, lifting the laden wagon. I looked at the man with the

knife. The wheel of the wagon, that to my right, spun slowly, free, the rain

glistening in the lantern light on its iron rim. The men were quiet in the rain. I

moved to my left, inch by inch. I then slowly, observing the man with the knife,

lowered the wagon to the road. It settled on the blocks of fitted stone.

I emerged from beneath the end of the wagon. Painfully I straightened up. I

looked down at the fellow with the knife.

He stepped back. He resheathed his knife. “They are your prisoners,” he said.

“Get to the wagon box,” I said to the fellow of the driver. “Lose no time. Get out

of here. When you can I would hood the prisoners, coarse sacking, cloth,

anything, and tie it down securely about their necks. Do not let them be

recognized for a hundred pasangs. If they are slain on you they will fetch little

from the master of a work gang.”

“Our wagon was that of Septimus Entrates,” he said.

“Very well,” I said. That meant nothing to me.

“I wish you well!” he said, hurrying around the wagon.

“I wish you well,” I said after him, and drew my pack from the back of the wagon.

In a moment I heard the snap of the whip, and the cries of the beast. Other men,

too, hurried back to their wagons. The heavy wagon trundled away. I stood on the

road, watching it leave, my pack in hand. Some men hurried after it, to strike and

kick at the prisoners, who were only too willing to hurry after the wagon. They

had been brigands, accumulating loot. Now, in a way, they themselves were loot,

and would bring something good, at long last, to honest men, their captors. I

continued to look after them, for a time. Yes, they were now themselves loot, as

much more commonly were women.

“Perhaps you will now permit us to proceed,” said a man.

“In a moment,” I said. I wanted the wagon to get a bit down the road. With the

slow going, and the storm, and its start, it was not likely another wagon would

catch up quickly with it.

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(pg.17) “Had some of you lost goods to those fellows?” I asked.

“I have,” said a man.

“Most of a wagonload of loot,” I said, speaking in the rain, “was emptied down

there, by the ditch. Perhaps you fellows would like to see if you can reclaim

anything.”

“The loot of Andron!” cried a man.

“Perhaps the tracks of the wagon, too, might lead to some cache, or hideaway,” I

said.

Men lifted lanterns.

“There is something down there,” said a man. Almost immediately he began to

descend the embankment. Two other men followed him. “Take the wagon ahead,”

said another man. “I will catch up with you later.” He then followed the others. I

moved to one side as the wagons, then, began to pass. “The loot or Ardon,” I

heard someone say. “Where?” asked another. “Where those men are,” said

another. Two more men left the road. The wagons continued to move by. The

fellow who had had the knife looked at me. “Is there really anything down there?”

he asked. “Yes,” I said. “Well,” said he, “perhaps I shall get something for the

evening, after all.” He slipped down the embankment, to join the others. I went

then again to the left side of the road and, when a wagon trundled by, unknown to

the driver, I put my pack in it, and, again, as I had before, held to its right side

with my left hand, to keep from falling in the road.

I thought the storm might have abated a bit but the rain was still heavy. Too, from

time to time, lightning shattered across the sky, suddenly bathing the road and

countryside in flashes of wild, white light, this coupled almost momentarily,

sometimes a little sooner, sometimes a little later, with a grinding and explosion

of thunder.

“It seems the Priest-Kings are grinding flour,” laughed a man near me.

“It would seem so,” I said.

This was a reference to an old form of grinding, for some reason still attributed to

Priest-Kings, in which a pestle, striking down, is used with a mortar. Most Sa-

Tarna is now ground in mills, between stones, the top stone usually turned by

water power, but sometimes by a tharlarion, or slaves. In some villages, however,

something approximating the old mortar and pestle is sometimes used, the two

blocks, a pounding (pg.18) block strung to a springy, bent pole, and the mortar

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John Norman - Gor 23 - Renegades of Gor

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